Flight Safety Information
August 12, 2016 - No. 158
In This Issue
Thanks to This Man, Airplanes Don't Crash Into Mountains Anymore
24 Injured in Severe Turbulence on JetBlue Flight From Boston to Sacramento
Fuel Probe Fault Behind ATR 42 Flame-Out
Instructor in deadly tandem jump lacked FAA license, skydiving group says
2 Jet Airways, Air India Pilots Suspended For Being Drunk
63 SpiceJet pilots face action for...violating duty hour norms
Antiquated air traffic control systems are becoming a serious threat to safety
Prism Joins Mitre-Led Govt-Industry Aviation Safety Information-Sharing
Program
ViaSat urges commercial airlines to do the math on satellite connectivity
Airlines' aging, complex, computers lead to flight delays
AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE: BREAKING THE ACCIDENT CHAIN...POST-FLIGHT
INSPECTIONS
It's time to overhaul airline safety demonstrations
Safer air travel: Existing navigation data can help pilots avoid turbulence
Watch..."The Crash Detectives Book Trailer"...on YouTube
ISASI 2016, Reykjavik, Iceland...17 to 20 October, 2016
(ISASI) DFW Regional Chapter (DFRC) Summer Meeting, September 8, 2016
Thanks to This Man, Airplanes Don't Crash Into Mountains Anymore
The wreckage of Alaska Airlines Flight 1866, a Boeing 727, smolders as recovery workers
search for the bodies of 111 victims on Sept. 7, 1971, in Juneau, Alaska.
Photographer:AP
Don Bateman's terrain mapping device has nearly eliminated the largest cause of death in
jetliner accidents.
By Alan Levin
Giant flocks of black birds circled the wreckage of an airliner that had struck an Alaska
mountain two weeks earlier, killing all 111 aboard. In a small plane overhead, a young
engineer directed his pilot to follow the same path the jet had taken toward the craggy
terrain.
With seconds to spare, an alarm went off. Don Bateman's plane climbed to safety, but he
was frustrated. The electronic device he invented to warn pilots that they were about to
hit the ground didn't leave enough time to have prevented the large airliner from
crashing.
"I was disappointed," Bateman, now 84, recalled of the day in 1971 when he flew over
the remains of Alaska Airlines Flight 1866, which had slammed into a fog-shrouded ridge.
"We needed to do better."
That's exactly what Bateman and his small team of engineers at what is now Honeywell
International Inc. did. The device presaged today's mobile mapping applications,
dramatically reduced what had been by far the worst class of air crashes and made
Honeywell billions of dollars.
Don Bateman with a Honeywell plane the company used to test his safety devices at Paine
Field in Everett, Wash.
Photographer: Mike Kane/Bloomberg
"I would give Don individual credit for having saved more lives than any other individual
in the history of commercial aviation," said Earl Weener, a member of the U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board and former chief engineer for safety at Boeing Co.
Before retiring in June, Bateman and his band of colleagues dabbled in the world of Cold
War espionage, hid the true cost of their endeavor from their corporate masters and
endured skepticism from the very airlines whose planes were being lost. In spite of
repeated changes in corporate ownership and the blunt-spoken Bateman's occasional
threats to quit, he worked on his mission to save lives with the same group for almost six
decades, colleagues said.
Eventually Bateman's Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System became required in
most commercial planes around the world, dramatically reducing accidents in which
perfectly good aircraft with trained crews plowed into the ground or bodies of water,
almost always in poor visibility.
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was an average of one such fatal accident per month,
according to the AviationSafetyNetwork website. It was by far the largest cause of death
in jetliner accidents.
President Obama awards Bateman the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in
2011.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Since the U.S. government began requiring an upgraded version of the device on all but
the smallest aircraft starting in 2001, there hasn't been a single such fatal crash on a U.S.
commercial passenger plane equipped with it or competing devices. There have been a
few overseas, often when pilots ignored or shut off the devices.
President Barack Obama awarded Bateman the National Medal of Technology and
Innovation in 2011.
Bateman was always fascinated with airplane crashes. As an 8-year-old school boy in
1940 in Saskatoon, Canada, he and a friend sneaked out of class after two military planes
collided and crashed nearby. As punishment, his teacher made him write a report on what
happened.
"That was my introduction to aircraft accidents," he said recently. The carnage he saw
that day helped motivate him years later.
After taking a job with Boeing in Seattle, he joined a small aviation firm called United
Control in 1958. Airplane accidents continued to fascinate him and he began "making little
books" of notes on them. One type stood out.
In the arcane world of aviation terminology, these crashes were called Controlled Flight
into Terrain, or CFIT. It was a vexing problem: Basic navigation should have kept pilots
from crashing. But the cockpit navigation technology of that era wasn't intuitive and it
was too easy to get disoriented, especially at night or in bad weather.
"In my mind it became a big issue, even though there wasn't much being done about it,"
Bateman recalled.
In the 1960s, Bateman worked with Scandinavian Airlines System, now SAS AB, which
had suffered a CFIT crash in Turkey in 1960, to invent a mechanism to warn pilots when
they flew too low. It involved a new instrument on planes that used radio waves to
determine a plane's distance from the ground. It helped stem the accident rate and, after
a series of crashes, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration required it starting in 1974.
But it was prone to false alarms and had a glaring weakness: It couldn't look forward, so
was of little use if a plane was flying toward steeply increasing ground, such as a
mountain.
For years, Bateman tinkered with the device to improve it. He also consulted with NTSB
investigators, poring over accident reports.
"He would come to me and say what do we know about this accident?" said Jim Ritter,
director of the NTSB's Office of Research and Engineering, who was a technician at the
time. "The whole time, the gears were spinning and he was trying to make things safer."
Bateman had been imagining a far better solution as early as his flight over the Alaska
crash site. If he could create a database of all the world's terrain, the device would see
mountain tops and cliffs from miles away. But this was before personal computers and
global-positioning services.
Even worse, much of the world's topography was considered secret at the time, a vestige
of the Cold War.
Then in 1991, in the chaos created by the breakup of the Soviet Union, the detailed maps
it had created of the world starting in the 1920s were for sale -- if you knew where to buy
them.
Bateman asked Frank Daly, the director of engineering at the Sundstrand Corp. division
that had swallowed United Control, for his blessing to purchase the data from the U.S.
government's Cold War enemy.
"He thought I was crazy," Bateman said.
They wound up sending one of his employees, Frank Brem, in search of maps in Russia
and elsewhere. "There isn't a terrain data store in downtown Moscow," Daly recalled. "But
he would go out and find the right people."
A bigger problem than navigating the black market was the millions of dollars it was
costing for the still unproven technology. "We probably weren't as open with senior
management about that process," Daly said. He sometimes hid costs in other accounts.
A demonstration of a prototype infrared technology from Honeywell at Morristown Airport
in New Jersey in 2010.
Photographer: Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg
By the early 1990s, Bateman had developed working prototypes of the new system. Now
the company had to sell it.
For pilots and safety officers, it was a marvel. Ed Soliday, then director of safety at United
Airlines, had been prodding Bateman to improve the warning device. One day in the early
1990s, Bateman called and said he thought he had what Soliday wanted.
"Once I flew the thing with Don, it was like an epiphany," Soliday recalled. "I was sold. I
thought if we could make it work, this was a huge breakthrough."
If a plane was flying toward a mountain, a screen popped up automatically marking the
high ground in yellow and red on a map. If pilots didn't respond, it began a series of
increasingly dire warnings. Once a collision became almost imminent, a mechanical voice
implored, "Terrain, terrain. Pull up! Pull up!" Compared to the earlier system, it was
almost fool proof.
There are 45,000 units on aircraft today, worth more than $4 billion at list prices
But many of the more cost-conscious corporate chieftains at airlines weren't convinced,
according to Bateman and Daly.
A meeting at American Airlines was particularly grim. Daly was on the sales call at the
airline's headquarters with his then chief executive officer. Their host, a senior executive
at the airline, was hostile.
"He was almost apoplectic and said, 'We don't want another box. We don't want to have
to replace the existing system,' " Daly said. "Here I am justifying spending tens or
hundreds of millions of dollars and my boss has just been soundly beaten on the
shoulders by the customer."
Soliday had more success at United. The airline agreed to help Bateman's team test it so
it could be certified by the FAA, he said. Most other carriers balked. It took another high-
profile fatal crash to change their minds.
What the Pilot Sees
Bateman's screen
The current version of Bateman's device, Honeywell International Inc.'s Enhanced Ground
Proximity Warning System, uses a color-coded map display to show pilots where
dangerous high ground lurks ahead. Hazards grow in danger from yellow to red. A solid
red area means a collision will occur within 30 seconds if pilots don't act. The device also
has warning horns and can instruct pilots to "pull up!" in an emergency.
As American Flight 965 neared Cali, Colombia, from Miami on the evening of Dec. 20,
1995, a pilot accidentally entered the wrong data into the plane's flight computers. The
crew didn't notice as it began a slow left turn toward mountains lying invisible in the
darkness.
The Boeing 757 was equipped with the earlier version of Bateman's warning device and its
mechanical voice began warning of "terrain." But 13 seconds later, after the pilots added
full throttle to climb as steeply as possible, it rammed into a ridge. All but four of the 163
people aboard died.
Within days the airline wanted the new device, which would have issued an alert far
earlier and likely prevented the crash, Bateman and Daly said. First American and then
United agreed to voluntarily install them. Other carriers followed. The FAA began requiring
them in 2001.
In the end, the products spawned by Bateman's device were a financial boon to
Honeywell. There are 45,000 units on aircraft today, worth more than $4 billion at list
prices, according to the company.
Both Bateman and Daly wonder whether the decades-long effort to develop and improve
the warning system would be possible in today's risk-averse corporate world.
"Today new projects need to be blessed by many people," Daly said. "You need to have
hard evidence. They just would not speculatively fund something like this, especially when
we were being resisted by the aircraft manufacturers, the airlines.
"But Don's faith, the genius of his team and a little support from the company -- and it
happened."
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-bateman-airplane-safety-device/
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24 Injured in Severe Turbulence on JetBlue Flight From Boston to Sacramento
A JetBlue flight from Boston to Sacramento hit severe turbulence Thursday evening,
causing injuries to 22 passengers and two crew members and forcing the Airbus 320
aircraft to land in Rapid City, South Dakota.
"People were floating," said passenger Rhonda Lynam of Pebble Beach, California. "All of a
sudden, it was as if you're on an elevator, 50 stories high, and it goes out of control. Then
you hit the bottom."
Lynam described how passengers were lifted out of their seats, with several of them being
slammed into the ceiling and overhead compartments as the plane dropped violently.
"People were being tossed around like rag dolls," she said. "Everybody was crying and
screaming. The plane was like a disaster."
Lynam tweeted several photos showing the aftermath, as emergency responders tended
to the injured on board. A spokesperson for Rapid City Regional Hospital said 24 people
from JetBlue Flight 429 were treated and released, all with minor injuries.
"It was almost like a bang, like we hit a wall and just dropped straight down," passenger
Casey Corcoran of Milton, Massachusetts, told Boston ABC affiliate WCVB. "There was
stuff in the aisles, you had people crying."
Corcoran, who was travelling with his two children, ages 5 and 7, said he saw passengers
with cuts and neck injuries. There was also damage to the inside of the plane, including
cracks in the overhead bins, he said.
"The flight diverted to Rapid City, South Dakota, and arrived safely at the gate at
approximately 7:30 p.m. local time," JetBlue said in a statement. "JetBlue care team
members are being sent to assist injured customers, and a replacement aircraft is en
route to Rapid City for customers continuing on to Sacramento."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/jetblue-flight-boston-sacramento-hits-severe-turbulence/story?id=41323011
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Fuel Probe Fault Behind ATR 42 Flame-Out
WASHINGTON-Faulty wiring to a fuel probe appears to be a key factor in an engine-out
incident involving a Danish Air Transport ATR 42-500 on a night flight from Esbjerg to
Billund, Denmark, on March 17.
According to a recent preliminary report by the Danish Accident Investigation Board
(DAIB), the twin turboprop had just departed Esbjerg when the right Pratt & Whitney
Canada PW127F engine flamed out at 1,000 ft. After stabilizing the aircraft at 3,000 ft.,
the crew was unable to restart the engine but decided to continue to the destination
airport, less than 30 nm. to the northwest.
On its instrument approach to Billund, which was reporting low ceilings, the cockpit
instrumentation showed the left engine had failed (torque indication went to zero) and the
autopilot disconnected, leading the captain to "rapidly move the left-engine power lever
forward," according to the report. Following that action, the cabin crew reported "loud
bangs from the left engine" and reported seeing a fire on the aircraft's left side.
Despite the commotion, the pilots were able to land on Runway 27, pulling off on a
taxiway to evacuate the seven passengers and discharging the fire bottles of both
engines. There were no injuries to the six crewmembers or the passengers.
Investigators determined the right engine failed due to fuel starvation, despite indications
in the cockpit that 1,124 lb. (510 kg) remained in the tank. A right-tank low-level light,
designed to activate when the fuel level in each tank is below 353 lb., also did not
illuminate. Cockpit indicators for the left tank showed 904 lb. of fuel remaining-the
amount investigators found in the tank.
After disassembling the right-side fuel-measurement system, which is comprised of five
probes for each of the two tanks, investigators found issues with a wire in Probe 3 for the
right tank. After "manipulating" the wire, the fuel-level and low-fuel indicators began
operating correctly, and investigators could not duplicate the problem.
Regarding the left-engine anomaly on landing, the AAIB said a visual inspection "revealed
no findings" A borescope inspection, while uncovering "incrustation, deposits and sod on
the internal parts of the engine," did not reveal any internal mechanical faults.
The DAIB is continuing its operational and technical safety investigation of the incident.
www.aviationweek.com
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Instructor in deadly tandem jump lacked FAA license, skydiving group says
Two Men Die in California Skydiving Accident
Two skydivers died after their parachute apparently failed to open following a tandem
jump in Northern California, authorities, said.
A skydiving instructor involved in a deadly tandem jump earlier this month lacked proper
licensing and may not have met other Federal Aviation Administration regulations,
according to a national skydiving organization.
The instructor, identified as Yong Kwon of South Korea, had leaped from an aircraft with
first-time jumper Tyler Turner on Saturday. Their parachute did not deploy until they hit
the ground. Both died.
FAA inspectors are investigating the incident at Skydive Lodi Parachute Center in Acampo.
An FAA guideline for tandem jumps requires an instructor to hold a master parachute
license issued by an organization recognized by the FAA. However, the U.S. Parachute
Assn., the only FAA-accepted, nationally recognized skydiving organization that licenses
skydivers in the nation, said Thursday that it had not issued Kwon a license.
"He was never a member and therefore was never issued a ... license by us," said Ed
Scott, executive director of USPA.
An FAA spokesman said the agency's investigation includes looking into the instructor's
qualifications. The agency said it does not comment on pending investigations.
Following the deadly jump, Parachute Center owner Bill Dause told KCRA-TV the instructor
was an independent contractor who had made about 700 jumps.
"The parachute failed to eject properly. We have no explanation why," Dause said. "The
only thing it looks like is something may have gone out of sequence [and] that may have
caused the problem."
When reached by phone Thursday, Dause declined to comment.
FAA regulations also include successfully completing a tandem instructor course and
receiving certification, which can be met through USPA or the manufacturer of the tandem
equipment used.
The manufacturing company, United Parachute Technologies, has no record of Kwon,
Scott said.
"It's a very serious red flag. Whether they affiliate with us or not, every business owner
should be complying with the aviation regulations," Scott said. "It indicates here in this
instance that that had not been met. That that instructor did not meet the regulations,
possibly others. We don't know."
Scott said the organization has begun to look at other instructors at Skydive Lodi
Parachute Center to see if they meet FAA guidelines.
The FAA has investigated multiple skydiving accidents at the parachuting center over the
years, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.
In 2010, the FAA proposed a $664,000 penalty against Dause for allegedly failing to
replace required parts on a DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter and comply with airworthiness
directives. The FAA alleged more than 2,000 flights were conducted despite parts being
"well past their life limits."
There are 240 skydiving businesses around the U.S. that affiliate with USPA, Scott said.
"In doing so, they pledge to us in writing that they will use USPA-certified instructors,"
Scott said. "That location was not affiliated with us. We really don't know what their
standard is."
Dause's USPA instructor ratings have been suspended by the organization.
"That means he cannot teach a first jump course, he cannot take a student on a first
jump, nor can he act as a coach and train novices," Scott said.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tandem-parachute-jump-20160811-snap-
story.html
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2 Jet Airways, Air India Pilots Suspended For Being Drunk
Pilots have been suspended for four years by DGCA after they were found drunk.
NEW DELHI: Two pilots, of Air India and Jet Airways, have been suspended for four years
by DGCA after they were found drunk on arrival of their overseas flights in India, while
both airlines have also been directed to register FIRs against the two.
Sources said a cabin crew member of Air India has also been slapped with one-year
suspension after post flight checks found traces of alcohol.
Considering the seriousness of the violations, the aviation regulator has written to the
chiefs of Jet Airways and Air India to register FIRs (First Information Report) against the
pilots concerned, sources said.
Both incidents, involving overseas flights, have been reported this month, they added.
This is possibly the first time that pilots have been tested positive for alcohol during tests
conducted soon after operating a flight. As normal practice, pre-flight checks are
conducted on pilots.
A Jet Airways spokesperson said the airline has terminated the services of the pilot
concerned, while there was no immediate response to queries sent to Air India.
Sources said both the pilots had earlier also tested positive for alcohol but that was during
pre-flight examination.
On August 10, the pilot of Air India's Sharjah-Calicut flight tested positive for alcohol
during post flight examination, while the pilot of Jet Airways' Abu Dhabi-Chennai flight
was found drunk on August 3.
The two pilots have been suspended for four years while a cabin crew of Air India has
been suspended for one year, sources added.
Jet Airways said the airline has terminated the services of the cockpit crew member "who
had tested positive during a breath analyser test conducted on August 3, 2016".
The airline has zero tolerance towards any action of its crew that contravenes safety
standards mandated in its operating manual approved by DGCA, it said in a release.
According to the release, this is clearly mentioned in the prescribed service conditions for
crew and is adequately emphasised during internal training sessions.
"In case of non-compliance, we take disciplinary action after due investigation as per
company policy," it added.
Further, Jet Airways said that while other countries have random alcohol testing policy,
DGCA regulations mandate 100 per cent screening for crew of Indian carriers before every
flight departing from an Indian airport and after every flight arriving into the country.
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/2-jet-airways-air-india-pilots-suspended-for-being-
drunk-1443278
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63 SpiceJet pilots face action for violating duty hour norms
NEW DELHI: About 63 pilots of SpiceJet were suspended, as they were
found to be flying beyond their flying duty limitations, Parliament was informed today.
The pilots were suspended for 15 days, parliament was informed. The suspension
happened about five months back. A senior DGCA official said that this is a routine
process and they keep doing it.
In case of rules not being followed, pilots
are warned first. "They are suspended for a brief period in the second instance and
further action is taken in the case of third violation," said a senior DGCA official.
"During surveillance and subsequent scrutiny of records, it has been revealed that 63
pilots
of SpiceJet had operated flights exceeding flight duty period as laid down in
Civil Aviation Requirements...," he said in a written reply.
However, the Minister did not disclose specific details such as when these incidents
happened.
In a separate written reply, Sinha said the new airport at Kannur in Kerala is expected to
be completed by May 31, 2017.
The project is being implemented by Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) through
funds
from equity and term loan from banks.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/airlines-/-aviation/63-
spicejet-pilots-face-action-for-violating-duty-hour-norms/articleshow/53654237.cms
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Antiquated air traffic control systems are becoming a serious threat to safety
America could learn a few things from Canada
THERE is a strange disconnection between the way lawmakers in America go about
protecting the country's airline passengers on the ground, and the way they abandon
them to their fate once they are airborne. Nothing is too much trouble when it is a
question of stopping bombs, guns and bad guys getting on board. But that contrasts with
the deaf ear turned to calls to make flying safer, cheaper and less arduous by dragging
the country's creaking, 1960s-era air-traffic-control (ATC) system into the 2010s.
Yet, such is what happened this summer when, before heading off for the beaches,
Congress once again failed to address the question of how best to reform the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA). An authorisation bill, passed on July 13th (two days before
the FAA's legal authority expired), merely extended the agency's finance for another year
and included measures to reduce the length of queues at security checkpoints, acquire
more bomb-sniffing dogs, tighten vetting of airport employees and let surplus screening
equipment to be donated to foreign airports. But it studiously ignored the bigger question
of how to get the FAA's "NextGen" modernisation plan, which would shift ATC from relying
on ground-based radars to a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast
(ADS-B), which uses satellites and transponders to follow aircraft movements, back on
track-and thus bring the country's antiquated ATC system up to international standards.
In this section
Antiquated air traffic control systems are becoming a serious threat to safety
In February, the House of Representatives' Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
proposed the Aviation Innovation Reform and Reauthorisation Bill. This would spin the air-
navigation service out of the FCC and turn it over to an independent, not-for-profit
organisation (to be called the ATC Corporation) set up explicitly for the purpose. Instead
of relying on an excise duty levied on fuel and air tickets, this independent corporation
would be self-financing, using a sliding scale of fees paid by airlines and other users. With
its own revenue, the corporation could then get on with installing ADS-B gear without
having to fight Congress each year for an apppropriation. The bill, eminently sensible on
the face of things, remains stalled in the House of Representatives, having failed to garner
bipartisan support. One side sees it as a giveaway of public assets; the other has difficulty
finding agreement amongst its own divisions.
Hiving off air navigation is not exactly a new idea. Over the past couple of decades more
than 50 countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, have privatised
(or at least "commercialised") their ATC services, freeing them to innovate and modernise
without government interference. The International Civil Aviation Organisation, the UN
agency that oversees worldwide aviation standards, has urged all 191 of its member
countries to extricate their air-traffic control from government bureaucracy and political
micromanagement-so they can manage the explosive growth in air travel with greater
safety and effectiveness.
America remains the biggest holdout. It is not that its airlines have balked at the
proposal. Practically all are on board. So, encouragingly, are the unions-which have
reversed their position since ATC liberalisation was first mooted back in the 1980s.
Insiders are aware that things simply cannot carry on as they are. The number of
passengers flying around the world each year is expected to double, to 6.4 billion, by
2030. In America, this is happening as a staffing crisis threatens to bring the country's
ATC system to its knees. The FAA has missed its recruitment target for each of the past
seven years. As a consequence, the number of certified air-traffic controllers (some
10,600) is the lowest it has been in 27 years. Making matters worse, some 3,000 of them
are approaching retirement age.
Not all of America's carriers think privatisation is the answer. Delta Air Lines has been
particularly outspoken, arguing that it would raise costs and cause fares to rocket.
Competitors, however, reckon Delta's objection has more to do with the age of its aircraft,
which would be expensive to fit with modern transponders. Private pilots have misgivings,
too. The cost of fitting ADS-B units to their small planes would hit them hard. For the rest
of the industry, though, NextGen cannot come soon enough. And if that means
privatisation, so be it. Most have watched Nav Canada, the non-profit company that has
managed air traffic across Canada and the North Atlantic, for the 20 years it has been in
business. Despite Delta's fears, Nav Canada's costs reportedly dropped 30% following
privatisation. The FAA's costs amount to $450 per flight hour, while Nav Canada's are
$340.
All of which is hardly surprising. America's patchwork of ground-based radio stations and
radars dates back to the Kennedy era. Planes are guided to their destinations in a series
of zig-zags, as they fly from one control point to the next. It can take ground controllers
up to half a minute to get a fix on a plane's echo transponder. Then there is the time it
takes-typically, around 12 seconds-for a radar dish to update a plane's position. By the
time the dish has completed a rotation, an aircraft may have moved a couple of miles.
That is why planes are required to fly at least five miles apart while crossing the country.
Also, because radar operates by line-of-sight, controllers can "lose" planes that are flying
at low altitude or behind mountains. In an age when digital communications are
instananeous and ubiquitous, controllers often have to pass along a plane's location and
other important details on strips of paper.
Planes equipped with ADS-B transponders, by contrast, get a precise location from GPS
satellites. This information is encoded with data providing the aircraft's flight number,
speed, heading and any manoeuvre it is making. These data are then broadcast
automatically every second to all ground stations and other aircraft within a 150-mile
radius. By knowing at any instant exactly where they are relative to other aircraft in the
sky, planes so equipped can travel closer together without fear of colliding. They can also
take more direct routes to their destinations, instead of zig-zagging their way from one
control tower to the next. That saves fuel and time, while minimising aerial congestion.
The FAA claims to be more or less on target with the ground part of its ADS-B installation
programme. But NextGen is still far from complete. Developing the software that lets air-
traffic controllers see ADS-B positional data on their computer screens, as a superior
digital version of the traditional radar blips, has proved tougher than expected, notes the
Department of Transportation. The DOT's inspector general is also sceptical about the
FAA's estimates of NextGen's final cost and completion date. The original estimate put the
amount the government and industry would pay at $20 billion apiece. The inspector
general thinks it could wind up costing "two or three times" as much. Back in 2012, the
FAA said all aircraft flying in American airspace would need to have ADS-B transponders
installed by 2020. The completion date has since slipped to 2025-and even that could be
off "by as much as a decade", the Wall Street Journal recently reported.
Meanwhile, satellite-navigation technology has not stood still. ADS-B was first mooted in
the mid-1990s. Prototype testing got underway in the early 2000s, with the aim of having
the new ATC system in place by 2015. However, innovations that have taken place over
the past decade have raised questions about what role (if any) ADS-B's hugely expensive
ground-based infrastructure may actually play.
Once again, Canada has shown the way. In terms of traffic volume, Nav Canada manages
the second largest airspace in the world after America's. The vast distances over remote
areas present special challenges. Pilots essentially fly blind once they are out of line-of-
sight range of radars on the ground. For safety reasons, planes crossing oceans and
remote regions must therefore be spaced well apart, restricting the flow of traffic.
To address the problem, Nav Canada teamed up with Iridium, a mobile communications
supplier based in McLean, Virginia. Iridium provides data connections between any two
points on Earth using its own satellite network. Aireon, its joint venture with Nav Canada,
has installed ADS-B receivers in Iridium's latest generation of satellites, which are
beginning to replace the company's existing constellation. The company is on track to
have swapped out all 66 of the old Iridium satellites for new ones by 2018. Aireon will
then be able to relay signals from ADS-B-equipped aircraft flying anywhere in the world to
controllers on the ground. This will change things a lot. The ability to provide surveillance,
second-by-second, of all the air traffic in the world-irrespective of whether the planes are
flying over oceans or polar regions-will be available to air-navigation service providers
without the need to install any additional infrastructure on the ground or equipment in the
air. Had such a capability been available in 2014, Malaysia Airlines's ill-fated flight MH370
would have been pinpointed instantly.
Aireon says, modestly, that its space-based ADS-B system will "complement existing
[ground-based] surveillance systems" and provide a back-up service in emergencies. But
the message is clear: when planning how best to meet future growth in traffic,
independent air-navigation providers everywhere are going to find it cheaper, quicker and
less fraught with uncertainty to sign up for a space-based ADS-B service off the shelf,
rather than try to build NextGen-like gear on the ground. That may be the best reason yet
why America needs to privatise its air-traffic control without delay.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21703477-americas-
antiquated-air-traffic-control-system-hindering-safety-sky-navigating
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Prism Joins Mitre-Led Govt-Industry Aviation Safety Information-Sharing
Program
Prism has joined a Mitre-administered government-industry information-sharing program
funded by the Federal Aviation Administration and will provide its Aviation Risk
Management Online Resource to serve as a participating platform for aviation safety
report submissions.
Prism said Wednesday it will participate in the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and
Sharing program that serves to facilitate safety information exchanges and provide
support resources for the aviation industry.
"Every business aviation flight operation should consider joining ASIAS not only to share
information via safety reports but to also gain the benefits of access to troves of directed
studies, safety metrics, industry benchmarking and vulnerability discoveries," said Steve
Witowski, a Prism vice president.
"The value of gaining insight into previously unknown issues or accident precursors goes
beyond measure."
ASIAS aims to provide a national resource for National Airspace System aviation operators
in the form of a network of safety information sources that work to update safety
management systems used across the sector.
Prism is a subsidiary of Argus international and a provider of safety management
systems.
http://blog.executivebiz.com/2016/08/prism-joins-mitre-led-govt-industry-aviation-
safety-information-sharing-program/
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ViaSat urges commercial airlines to do the math on satellite connectivity
Broadband connectivity provider ViaSat wants airlines to focus on the solid-green areas of
highest aircraft density to determine which service provider can deliver acceptable
bandwidth even in crowded skies. In the United States, ViaSat says, it has sufficient
bandwidth, especially when its ViaSat-2 satellite launches in 2017. Credit: Wikipedia
PARIS - Satellite broadband services and hardware provider ViaSat Inc. on Aug. 9 sought
to deliver a decisive blow to airline-connectivity competitors including Inmarsat, Gogo,
Global Eagle Entertainment and Panasonic Avionics.
Sensing that the coming months could be crucial in the competition to sign up airline in-
flight-connectivity customers, especially in North America, ViaSat Chief Executive Mark D.
Dankberg asked airlines to perform a simple calculation:
Determine how much bandwidth per beam is available for each of the competing services,
and multiply that by the number of beams the service plans to devote to its airline
customers in a given market.
The resulting "total illuminated gigahertz," Dankerg said, will be divided among the
hundreds of planes likely to be in the air over a given populated airspace such as the East
Coast of the United States. Regardless of how good the modem or how big the antenna
on the aircraft is, bottlenecks will develop because of the raw amount of bandwidth is
available on the satellites whose capacity has been leased by the airlines' service
providers.
Performance in congested areas is key performance metric
"You're seeing people point out one airplane or two airplanes and say, 'Look, we can
stream Netflix,' or 'We can get 100 megabits per second,'" Dankberg said in a conference
call with investors, an obvious reference to Chicago-based Gogo Inc. "The real issue is:
What happens when you have hundreds or thousands of airplanes in a small number of
beams? People are still a little bit confused and so that's our current campaign."
Carlsbad, California-based ViaSat as of June 30 had 509 commercial jets fitted with its
Exede airline connectivity service using the ViaSat-1 Ka-band satellite. ViaSat-2, with
double ViaSat-1's total bandwidth, is scheduled for launch in early 2017.
Both satellites focus on the Americas and surrounding air and sea lanes. But Dankberg
said ViaSat will be able to focus all of ViaSat-2's bandwidth over the United States if
market demand justifies it, enabling the company to offer more than 100 Mbps per plane
even when hundreds of ViaSat customer aircraft are flying in the same region.
"Each of the other systems has only about five or six beams in total available to serve the
entire U.S. market, and each of these five or six beams has a total throughput of between
50 and a few hundred megabits per second when delivered to an aeronautical mobile
terminal," Dankberg said.
ViaSat-1, he said, currently is capable of delivering 100 Mbps per plane even in high-
demand regions and "at each point in their flight," meaning those high-aircraft-density
areas around airports.
With ViaSat-2, he said, this same level of per-plane bandwidth will be assure even if
2,000 or more aircraft are demanding bandwidth simultaneously.
Even if a competing technology is able to deliver 100 megabits per plane, its maximum
per-aircraft delivery will be divided by the number of planes passing through the satellite's
beams, resulting in much lower satellite bandwidth available to a given aircraft.
Ku-band high-throughput satellites won't solve the problem because of the limited
bandwidth available on the satellites being used, he said:
"The failure mode here is not that the bandwidth is so expensive, it's that there's just not
enough of it, resulting in congestion, slow service, limited number of passengers per plane
and limited online activities."
Firm contract with Boeing for two ViaSat-3 platforms
ViaSat is designing a next-generation system, ViaSat-3, aiming at throughput of 1 Terabit
per second of total throughput.
In an Aug. 9 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ViaSat said
that in July it converted a preliminary ViaSat-3 order with Boeing into a firm contract.
Under the contract, valued at $368.3 million, Boeing will build two ViaSat-3 skeletal
structures and then integrate onto them the ViaSat-built electronics payloads. The
contract includes options for ViaSat to purchase up to two additional ViaSat-3 platforms
from Boeing. ViaSat plans to launch the first ViaSat-3 in 2020 or 2021.
The contract gives an indication of the value of payloads. In May 2013, ViaSat contracted
for Boeing to build the ViaSat-2 platform and payload for $358 million.
Zero subscriber growth, but higher per-subscriber revenue
ViaSat's consumer broadband service in the United States, using the same ViaSat-1
satellite plus the aging WildBlue-1, reported 696,000 subscribers as of June 30 - flat from
March 31. ViaSat consumer service growth continues to be stunted by the fact that many
ViaSat-1 beams in high-demand regions are full.
But while the subscriber numbers are flat, ViaSat has been able to extract more revenue
from each subscriber in addition to increasing the number of planes using the service.
Consumer revenue for the three months ending June 30 averaged $60 per month, up 2.5
percent from March 31.
Adjusted EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, for
the satellite services division was $72 million for the three months ending June 30, up 30
percent from the same period a year ago.
http://spacenews.com/viasat-urges-commercial-airlines-to-do-the-math-on-satellite-
connectivity/#sthash.eKBXsDiY.dpuf
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Airlines' aging, complex, computers lead to flight delays
The massive outage that forced Delta to cancel thousands of flights this week showed how
airlines face a relatively new vulnerability that could only get worse - an aging, complex
web of computers that control every aspect of their operation.
When the systems fail, they can bring entire airlines such as Delta to a grinding halt -
whether it's the ability to sell tickets or schedule aircraft crews.
Where once software was used primarily to book flights and issue tickets, today it's a
matrix of overlapping, often disjointed systems that interact with mobile apps, track
loyalty awards and help the airline industry bring in billions of dollars through the sale of
perks like extra leg room. That growing complexity makes for hiccups, and they are
difficult to avoid.
Some of the systems, such as Delta's, are built on top of systems that are decades old.
For instance, Delta's reservation and passenger service system is multilayered, built on a
52-year-old program called Deltamatic.
"It's a 'Mad Men'-era computer system," says Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with the travel
industry company Atmosphere Research Group.
By Thursday, Delta had largely recovered from the outage that caused it to cancel or
delay more than 4,000 flights, the biggest disruption to the airline's operations since the
terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The fact that Delta, known for its on-time reliability, took
days to get back on track illustrates the intricacy at play when so many systems have to
work together.
"They genuinely are a very reliable carrier, and this is a tremendous aberration which
came as a surprise to everybody," says Daniel Baker, CEO of flight tracking site
FlightAware. "I think it's a combination of an extremely interconnected and complex
system. And bad luck."
Delta's technical meltdown was just the most recent to leave passengers in the lurch:
*Southwest. In July, Southwest's website was knocked offline, and the carrier canceled
roughly 1,850 flights over three days after a router powered by old technology failed and
alternate systems didn't properly kick in.
*JetBlue. Passengers encountered flight delays in January when there was a loss of power
at a data center used by the airline.
*American. The airline cited connectivity issues when it briefly suspended flights last
September at Miami, Chicago O'Hare and Dallas/Fort Worth airports.
*United. After incurring a series of glitches since merging with Continental in 2010, United
temporarily grounded a large number of its flights in both June and July of last year
because of technical difficulties.
Don't expect reliability to improve anytime soon.
"This is not the end to these sorts of problems," Baker says. "It's not like the airline can
say, 'We'll invest in this, and by Christmas we' ll guarantee reliability.' These are
multiyear endeavors ... (And) in general, the airlines are like a wristwatch. Every little
piece has to work perfectly or it all falls apart."
In a videotaped message Aug. 9, Delta CEO Ed Bastian apologized for this week's
disruption and said that "over the last three years, we've invested hundreds of millions of
dollars in technology, infrastructure upgrades and systems, including backup systems to
prevent what happened yesterday from occurring."
However, Bastian has since said that roughly 300 of Delta's 7,000 servers were not linked
to an alternate power source. When a faulty piece of power control equipment caught fire
Monday, sparking a surge that knocked out power, servers that did have back up were
unable to communicate with those that did not, taking down Delta's whole system.
"Our infrastructure is dated, no question," Bastian told The Atlanta Journal Constitution,
but "I don't think that was the problem."
Still, before this week's incident, Delta had already brought on board a new executive to
oversee its technology and help outline next steps.
The airline declined an interview request with Bastian.
While the basic foundation of many airline systems has been in use for decades,
complexity, not age, is the real problem, says Lance Sherry, director of the Center for Air
Transportation Systems Research at George Mason University.
"So many systems are layered on top of each other that we don't always know who's
talking to whom," Sherry said.
Sherry says airlines run multiple, intersecting systems which must flawlessly interact with
each other. In the industry, there are at least six - ticketing reservation, aircraft
assignment, flight crew scheduling, airport gate assignment, air traffic flow management
and irregular operations systems.
Often they come from different vendors and use different software languages. And yet
they must be synchronized, and timing is split-second and critical.
"It's like a ballet, where the ballerina is thrown up by one dancer but another one has to
catch her coming down," Sherry says.
The three main players in the business - Sabre, Amadeus and Hewlett Packard - all are
working on integrated systems, he says, but that process takes time and can be delayed
by factors as routine as airline purchase cycles or as fundamental as a carrier's financial
health.
A systems upgrade would likely cost an airline at least $75 million, according to
Harteveldt. But airlines have been flush with profits in recent years, thanks to plunging
fuel costs and a disciplined matching of seats to passenger demand. Last year was the
industry's biggest moneymaker at least since deregulation in 1978, with airlines reporting
$25 billion in profits - monies that they poured, in part, into stock buybacks and dividends
for investors.
Airlines stocks have lagged so far this year. The S&P airline index is down 18.3% through
Aug. 5 vs. a 6.8% increase for the S&P 500. But the airline industry index outperformed
the S&P 500 on a five-year compound annual growth base, increasing 26% as compared
to 12.4%, according to Jim Corridore, an analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Even when airlines are willing to fork over the money to upgrade computers, there's
another obstacle: the need to make improvement on systems that need to remain
running around the clock every day of the year. A company can't just stop operations for
four days while it installs a new system. Additionally, global regulatory requirements
make full-scale overhaul difficult.
Still, for stranded, frustrated passengers, it is hard to understand why airlines can't install
more efficient technology.
"It's amazingly vexing, especially if you're one of the passengers caught in this latest
Delta fiasco,'' says Charlie Leocha, president of the advocacy group Travelers United. It is
"mind boggling that one switch in one room at Delta headquarters can shut down the
entire ... system."
The industry should start plowing some of its profits into improvements that would fend
off such disruptions, he says.
Airlines say they have been doing exactly that. United, which chose to adopt Continental's
reservations system after the two carriers merged in 2010, will spend $500 million on
technology this year, according to Luke Punzenberger, a United spokesman.
American Airlines spokeswoman Martha Thomas said the connectivity issue that led to a
ground stop at three of its hubs last September and the delay or cancellation of 297
flights was "a one-time event" that was quickly identified and repaired. She added the
carrier "is constantly upgrading and looking for ways to improve our systems and
technology for customers and employees."
And Southwest, which had to cancel hundreds of flights in July after a router
malfunctioned, says it "will continue updating, enhancing, replacing and/or modernizing
our software systems and technologies," spokesman Dan Landson says.
The low-cost carrier, which currently relies on a separate reservations system for
international bookings, is in the midst of transitioning to a single platform which should be
operational by the end of next year. The cost is estimated to be roughly $500 million.
Other factors, beyond actual software, also need to be addressed by airlines to allow them
to avoid, or more quickly recover from, technological glitches. Delta created a graphical
interface to make the system more user-friendly and roughly a year ago stopped training
customer service and reservation representatives on the older version. When Delta's
computer networks came back online this week, only the older Deltamatic interface was
working at some sites. "So all the agents who couldn't use Deltamatic were useless,"
Harteveldt said.
Harteveldt adds Delta closed a second data center in 2009 that could have proved a
backup to the Atlanta center which had problems this week. And the airline did not appear
to have a business continuity plan.
"It's inexcusable," he says.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/08/11/airlines-complex-aging-systems-
lead-to-flight-delaying-computer-glitches/88539190/
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AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE: BREAKING THE ACCIDENT CHAIN
POST-FLIGHT INSPECTIONS
The human mind is capable of a surprising amount of self-deception in order to achieve
what (we think) we want. We have the ability to rationalize many things in order to justify
our actions to avoid pain or to fulfill an immediate desire. Rationalizing our desires can
result in actions as benign as breaking a diet or as serious as risking death. Without
discipline, self-awareness, and/or a strong moral compass, "magical thinking" takes over
and poses a risk to ourselves and to those around us.
In aviation accidents, we typically review the chain of events (or error chain) that consists
of the many contributing factors leading up to the accident. If just one link in the chain
had been broken, the theory goes, the accident would have been averted. The
contributing actions that make up the links in the chain typically stem from human factor-
related mistakes and pilot error, rather than simple mechanical failure. That's not to say
that accidents aren't caused by mechanical failure; it just means that our own decision-
making often plays a significant role in the outcome of the situation.
This is, after all, a maintenance column; so let's look at ways we can break the accident
chain by preventing mechanical issues from becoming accidents.
I consider the postflight inspection to be the most important inspection a pilot can
perform. The end of a flight might seem to be the least likely first step in accident
prevention, but it's actually the best time to be thinking safety with a clear head. Preflight
inspections, while critical, are the riskiest time for us to be making good decisions. We
have all sorts of other pressing issues on our minds: weather, time, packing, passengers,
etc. Our ability to focus completely on the job at hand is a challenge, to say the least.That
said, an even greater danger is how we will handle the decision-making process if we
happen to find a discrepancy.
Preflight is the perfect situation for rationalization and "magical thinking" to begin the
error chain. We have a mission, a place to go or something we need to do. If we discover
something that might jeopardize the trip, our first instinct will be to find a way to justify
continuing with our plan. Time is not on our side, so we are likely to make different
decisions than we might otherwise make. The oil could be down a quart, a tire could be a
little low, a nick could be found in the prop, the engine idle could be rough, or just
something may not feel right during the preflight inspection. The temptation is strong to
think: "It's only a few hours of flying. I'll be OK."
Take those same situations during a thorough postflight inspection, and the outcome is
likely to be very different. Time is not a factor, so we make a plan to get everything taken
care of. Buy a case of oil, check and fill all the tires, properly dress-out the nick in the
prop, and make a plan to find the cause of the rough engine idle. We have time to order
parts, get a second opinion, or dig deeper into something that seems a little off. We don't
fly until the airplane is perfect because we don't have to.
So, consider adding a thorough postflight inspection to your routine. Open the cowl after
each flight and inspect the engine, check the control surfaces and everything else that
you would typically check on a good preflight (and then some). This is the time to find a
problem because this is when you can be uncompromising in your action plan.
Everyone plays the mental game of rationalizing potentially bad decisions or actions. The
key is to have the tools, the checkpoints, and the self-awareness to prevent those
thoughts from turning into actions. Stack the deck in your favor and leave "magical
thinking" to the magicians. Happy Flying!
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/august/10/aircraft-maintenance-
post-flight-inspections
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It's time to overhaul airline safety demonstrations
With attention spans short and some aspects of in-flight briefings outdated, it's time for a
shake-up, says Simon Calder
Is it time to abandon the lifejacket demonstration?
The aviation industry has worked miracles improving everything from engineering to
interpersonal relationships on the flight deck: that's what I wrote in my business travel
column last weekend.
It's highly unlikely that you or I are ever going to be involved in a serious aviation
incident, but if it happens then it is likely to be survivable. It all depends on the
evacuation, as Emirates EK521 at Dubai proved earlier this month when it crashed on the
runway. All the passengers and crew escaped the burning Boeing, though a firefighter was
killed in the blaze.
With the worldwide accident rate at extraordinarily low levels, I argued, it's the
passengers' turn to do their bit to make flying even safer. Travellers need to sharpen up
in preparation for the (very rare) event of an emergency evacuation. Assess in advance
where the two nearest emergency exits are. Yell at anyone who reaches for their hand
luggage. And during the safety briefing, shush anyone who's talking, not listening.
I finished writing the column at the departure gate at Osijek airport in Slavonia, eastern
Croatia. I pressed "send" and walked through the gate to the plane to Stansted. Five
minutes later, and halfway through the safety briefing, the neighbouring passenger
started talking to me.
I didn't feel too bad about shushing her, because she is my wife. But afterwards, we
discussed why Charlotte was happy to talk even though the cabin crew were halfway
through demonstrating how to don and use a lifejacket "in the unlikely event of landing on
water".
"I already knew that bit," she said.
Aviation safety purists stress how important it is to listen to every word of the briefing.
Plane types vary (though not currently on Ryanair), and there can be subtle but important
changes to the wording. For example, after an inflight incident in which the oxygen masks
were deployed, some passengers complained that the bag just below the mask didn't fill
with oxygen, and therefore the system wasn't working. Now, Ryanair passengers are told
not to expect the transparent "lung" to inflate.
But if a sensible and safety-conscious person such as my wife feels that she has heard the
drill so often that she could put on a life vest with her eyes closed, and still find the
whistle to attract attention, then the standard safety briefing is not fit for purpose.
First, is a drill really necessary? Yes. Just because Charlotte has heard the drill a million
times before, the 180 other passengers on Ryanair flight 7966 may not have done. Even
in the US, where aviation is more commonplace than anywhere else, a government
survey found that 18 per cent of the public had never flown.
So already it's a difficult audience: first-time flyers, anxious passengers, and people who
believe they could recite the two-minute talk in their sleep.
The solution: vary the briefing, according to the particular risks for that flight. That bit
about the life jackets, for example, when Charlotte's attention wandered.
I can understand that on the long, oceanic flight from Stansted to Ponta Delgada in the
Azores, it makes sense to mention the devices, even though my "whistle to attract
attention" may sound feeble in the mid-Atlantic. When I made the journey, the only land
on the flightpath between the English Channel and the island of Sao Miguel was the
western tip of Brittany. But on the flight from Croatia to London, I timed how long the
plane spent flying over bodies of water: less than a minute above Lake Balaton in
Hungary, and 14 minutes over the southern end of the North Sea between Ostend and
Clacton.
Now, I will be first in the queue for Sully - the forthcoming film about the US Airways
captain who, in 2009, successfully ditched his aircraft in the Hudson after a multiple
birdstrike disabled both engines. Tom Hanks plays Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger,
the man responsible for the "Miracle on the Hudson" in which all 155 aboard were saved.
But that was in the most extreme circumstances, immediately after take-off from an
airport in the middle of a very crowded city. I estimate that we started the North Sea
crossing at about 30,000 feet and ended it at 20,000, and at those heights I imagine the
average pilot faced with the loss of power - or an on-board fire - would plan to divert to
one of the many available airports on either side of the water rather than gliding into the
drink.
I cannot trace any events in modern times in which a lifejacket helped preserve the life of
any passenger flying with a UK airline. So, could that element of the briefing be - if you
will excuse the phrase - ditched?
Instead, use the time saved to remind passengers why it is important to keep your shoes
on during take off and landing: in case you need to run for an exit, and away from the
plane, in an evacuation.
Still more radical ideas deserve to be discussed. In advance of the flight, airlines could
stipulate sensible footwear (no flip-flops or high heels) as a condition of allowing you on
board. Infrequent or first-time flyers could be offered a more in-depth briefing at the
departure gate - tempered with some reassurance about the astonishingly good safety
record of passenger aviation.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airline-safety-briefing-
demonstration-crash-safest-airlines-what-to-do-simon-calder-a7185316.html
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Safer air travel: Existing navigation data can help pilots avoid turbulence
Detecting turbulence remains the Achilles' heel of modern-day aviation. The reports
submitted by pilots, subjective and often very inaccurate, are the least expensive and the
most frequently used method for trying to predict where it will occur. Scientists from the
Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, have demonstrated that turbulence can be
detected in a much faster and more precise way, using data already routinely broadcast
by the aircraft operated by commercial airlines.
Anyone who has experienced turbulence on an airplane certainly knows that it's no fun
ride. Despite advancements in technology, methods used to detect these dangerous
atmospheric phenomena are still far from perfect. However, there is every indication that
data allowing pilots to avoid turbulence and even to forecast such occurrences are already
being routinely recorded. In fact, this has been done for many years! Jacek Kopec, a
doctoral student at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, and a member of the
staff of the University's Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational
Modelling (ICM), has managed to extract this valuable information from the flight
parameters routinely broadcast by the transponders installed in most of the modern
commercial aircraft. This new method for detecting turbulence is so original and
potentially easy to implement on a large scale that the article describing it has been
featured in the "highlight articles" section of the journal Atmospheric Measurement
Techniques.
"Today's commercial aircraft fly at altitudes of 10 to 15 km, where the temperatures fall
to -60 °C. Conditions for measuring atmospheric parameters are very difficult, which
explains why such measurements are not taken systematically or extensively. A lack of
sufficiently accurate and up-to-date information not only exposes aircraft and their
passengers to danger, it also restricts the development of theories and tools for
forecasting turbulence," Jacek Kopec says.
At present, pilot reports (PIREPs), relayed by radio and provided to pilots of other aircraft
by air traffic controllers, are a basic source of turbulence data. Since these reports are
based on the subjective opinions of pilots, the data collected in this way are often marred
by substantial inaccuracies as to both the area of turbulence and its intensity. More
accurate readings are provided by aircrafts involved in the Aircraft Meteorological Data
Relay (AMDAR) program. This method is nonetheless costly, so data collected at cruising
altitudes are transmitted relatively rarely. In practice, this prevents such reports from
being used to detect and forecast turbulence.
Passenger aircraft are fitted with sensors that record a variety of flight parameters.
Unfortunately, most of the data are not made publicly available. Publicly available reports
include only the most basic parameters such as the position of the aircraft (ADS-B
transmissions, which are also used by the popular website FlightRadar24) or its speed
relative to the ground and the air (Mode-S data). Meanwhile, detecting turbulence
requires knowledge of the vertical acceleration of aircraft.
"Vertical accelerations are especially strongly felt both by the passengers and by the
aircraft," Jacek Kopec explains. "Unfortunately, there is no access to materials regarding
vertical accelerations. That was why we decided to check if we could extract such data
from other flight parameters, accessible in Mode-S and ADS-B transmissions. The
research aircraft in a project in which I participated was fitted with a suitable transponder,
so we took advantage of that fact. By coincidence, our coauthor, Siebren de Haan from
the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, recorded the transmissions received from
the transponder," he adds.
Scientists from the Faculty of Physics tested three algorithms of turbulence detection. The
first relied on information about the position of aircraft (ADS-B transmissions). However,
preliminary tests and their comparison against the parameters registered in the same
area by the research aircraft failed to produce satisfactory results. As for the remaining
two algorithms, each of them used, though in somewhat different ways, the parameters
received approximately every four seconds through Mode-S transmissions. In the second
approach, the parameters were analyzed using the standard theory of turbulence. In the
third approach, the scientists adapted a method for determining turbulence intensity
previously used to measure turbulence on a very small scale in the understory of forests.
It turned out that once wind velocity in the vicinity of the aircraft was determined and its
changes were analyzed in successive readings, it was possible to use the latter two
theoretical approaches to locate turbulence areas with an error of only 20 km. Passenger
aircraft need around 100 seconds to travel this distance, so this level of accuracy would
allow pilots to maneuver their aircraft to effectively avoid turbulence.
By harnessing existing data, this system of turbulence detection developed at the
Institute of Geophysics (Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw) therefore requires no
significant investments in aviation infrastructure. In order to be operational, the system
needs adequate software and a computer connected in a simple way to the devices that
receive Mode-S transmissions from the transponders on board aircraft. Such devices are
standard equipment in air traffic control institutions in Europe. In this system, passenger
aircraft act as sensors by creating a dense network of measurement points above Europe.
"In the coming months, we will be working to improve the software. Nevertheless, we
have already achieved our most important goal: we have proved that the method for
detecting turbulence we have proposed really works and can provide pilots with
information enabling them to avoid dangerous areas in the atmosphere. Turbulence
detection will also help improve aviation forecasting methods," stresses Prof. Szymon
Malinowski from the Faculty of Physics, Jacek Kopec's doctoral dissertation advisor and
one of the authors of the publication.
The turbulence detection system has been developed under a grant from Poland's
National Science Center (NCN). Data for the research was collected in a flight test
campaign financed from the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160811101024.htm
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Watch "The Crash Detectives Book Trailer" on YouTube
http://christinenegroni.com/books/the-crash-detectives/
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The International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) will
hold their 47th annual seminar at the Grand Hotel Reykjavik,
Iceland, from
October 17- 20, 2016
Up to date program details, links to the registration program and the hotel
can be found at www.esasi.eu/isasi-2016 or www.isasi.org
Dates to Remember
Cut off date for the seminar rate at the hotel is September 10, 2016.
Reservations made after that date will not be guaranteed the seminar rate.
Cut off date for the early registration fee is September 25, 2016.
We look forward to seeing you in Iceland
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RSVP by contacting Erin Carroll, DFRC President by September 1
Email: erin.carroll@wnco.com or Telephone: (214) 792-5089
Curt Lewis